• Flying buttress figurine: An accordionist

    Eusebius, Restoration
    Accordionist new, Muschelkalk limestone
    melodeon, black and white drawing

    Securely bolted down

    Actually, it wasn't an accordionist. More like a man with a melodeon, that small thing that they use in sailor's choirs. But at last it had arrived! I 'd been waiting for it for a long time, because it was stuck. To the new Focus Filmtheater. When I first asked for it, the replies were not good: the figurine (that I still was to copy) was temporarily borrowed out to the theater, but apparently it was attached so very rigidly that it was impossible to ever get it loose again. The roof would have to come off, or I would have to recieve the sculpture with the Film theater attached, you get the point.

    After much consultation, calling and meeting the sculpture turned out to be a bit easier to disassemble and it came my way.

    Presawing

    old flying buttress sculpture on pre-sawing machine

    When I got it in, the long pieces of threaded rod were still attached. That was actually a bit of a bother, because I had to make an entire construction for it to properly anchor the statue on my presawing machine. But a challenge from time to time is fun, so with some inventiveness we were able to come up with a good solution. It wasn't all that complicated from that point on: presawing the sculpture, copying it and sharpening up the details.

    Rough

    new flying buttress figurine accordionist

    The two flying buttresses that we are currently tackling have been carved (round 1956) quite roughly by Eduard van Kuilenburg. Add to this the fact that this accordionist spent more than sixty years on top of the church and you'll understand that it has all become a bit vague. The challenge in this sculpture is therefore not so much in the technical difficulty. The statue of Pope Leo the Great was a much more difficult job. When carving this group of sculptures, the main issue is with the details and finish.

    These statues don't have many details, and the parts that were there were carved very simple. The finish is coarse. Therefore, the most interesting part is carving things like the face, the hands and feet in such a way that these show a bit more, but still clearly match the style of the rest of the sculpture. And as for the finish: by playing with different surfaces such as bush hammered, pointed, toothed or flat chisel marks, lively surfaces can be created that enhance the design.

    Giving it hands and feet

    new flying buttress figurine accordionist

    The accordionist's hands were not equal on the left and right. The right hand did have somewhat like fingers, but on the left he only had a lump with a few stripes. However, the sculptor had chosen a nice position of the fingers, which indicates the playing on the keys. The feet were never really detailed, and after that it all weathered down further. The position of the hands and feet has remained the same in the new copy, but I've made more obvious fingers and toes on it. They're still huge lumps, though. The accordionist's face was slightly turned to the right, and he had a nice crooked smile, as if he was completely absorbed in a difficult piece of music. It was almost impossible to see anymore, so I recreated it a little more clearly in the new copy. The eyes of these figurines all have only upper eyelids and a hole underneath. However, it works very well in terms of shading, so I left it that way.

    Crooked

    It is striking that almost all heads that Van Kuilenburg carved are so strongly asymmetrical. Foreheads that run in an odd angle, a cheekbone two centimeters deeper than the other, eyes that are in a completely different plane. More and more often I wonder if he might have had trouble seeing depth, or that he only had sight in 1 eye. This sculptor's life was very tragic and he only got 39 years old. Maybe someday more about his life will be published, but it is not up to me to do that here. In any case, we try to make those crooked heads a bit more plausible without detracting too much from the character of the original sculpture. If you'd copy it exactly like this you'd get a sculpture that is even worse than the original, because you can't transfer some of its directness into the copy. Therefore, in order to maintain this fluency, we don't copy it with a pointing machine, but we work partly in the same way as Van Kuilenburg: shaping directly into the stone.

    ornaments south portal Eusebius Church, in Baumberger stone

    South Portal

    ornaments south portal Eusebius Church, in Baumberger stone

    A partial assignment that came in between all of this was the ornamental work for the South Portal of St. Eusebius's Church. We suspect that this too was originally carved in the 1950s. But it is known that Baumberger stone doesn't last that long and washes out quite quickly into a shapeless mass. Because a number of parts were already missing and chipped, a lot of natural stone has been replaced. We did some of those ornaments, our colleague Serge did the largest part at our request.

    3D-scan

    Finally, someone came by this week with a scanner and laptop: Emiel Frederiks from Nidim. He recorded the copy of the accordionist into a 3D model, from which one day maybe small versions will be printed. We'll see.

    To the next flying buttress statue.

  • Ornaments in basaltic lava for the Utrecht Dom Cathedral

    Dom Church, Utrecht, Latest projects, Restoration
    large crockets in basaltic lava for the cathedral of Utrecht, ready for transport

    These last months were a period when we were mainly busy carving stone ornaments. After all the carving of crockets for finials of St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem we went straight ahead with these large crockets in basalt lava for the Utrecht Cathedral. During my vacation the blocks had arrived and a first example was approved by the assessment committee.

    French basalt lava

    completed and precut crocket in Volvic basalt lava

    Volvic Basaltlava originates from near the French village of Volvic in the Puy de Dome, in the Auvergne. This village is known for the eponymous mineral water, but its stone has gathered its own fame as well. Basaltic lava is tremendously resistant to weathering, and this kind in particular is also suited for carving, such as, for example, can be seen at the Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand. It can all appear to be a bit grey and dull when it is used all over a building, but when used sparingly and mixed in with other stonework, it can be a valuable addition. Unlike for example Peperino Duro, Volvic will remain well defined under all kinds of weather- and lighting conditions, whereas Peperino will soon appear a vague gray mass, and the play of shapes becomes unreadable. Even when it rains the lines are still clearly visible in Volvic. It was widely used, for example, in the last restoration of Our Lady's Tower in Amersfoort as a replacement of sandstone, even for the sculptural parts. This stone actually blends in very well with the gray tones of weathered Bentheimer sandstone.

    completed crocets in Volvic basaltic lava, wet by rain
    even during wet weather these crockets stand out clearly

    There are more types of basalt lava, like Niedermendiger and Mayener basaltic lava, which for centuries has been used for grindstones, because of their durability, hardness and sharpness. To me, these are not nice stones to carve in; one needs to really work hard to make something and it all remains very dark. That is why, in this case, I submitted a proposal to carve these ornaments in Volvic, in particular because a few meters below them the same stone is used on the same walls of the Dom Church. Alternatives for this were Peperino and sandstone. However sandstone is more vulnerable than Volvic.

    For- and disadvantages

    rough carving a large crocket in Volvic basalt lava

    As mentioned, Volvic is well suited for carving. It can even be used for enameling, or rather glazes, provided it's first covered in a thin layer of clay. This process is mainly suited for large tile panels without seams. Drawbacks are that those can't be made much thicker than 3 to at the most 5 cms, and there will always be a risk that the stone will snap in the oven. However, I would like to carve a relief one day and then have it glazed to create a vivid and colorful display.

    The material will always remain unslippery and that's one of the reasons that basalt lava is often used for steps and stairs. It will weather very slowly. But it is a lava rock, containing many small gas bubbles. These bubbles may occur in lines, along which the stone could break during processing and also after cutting when on the pallet it could still spontaneously break along an invisible tension line . The stone is layered and carves a lot easier in one direction than in the other. Like most natural stone, Volvic basalt lava also comes in various shades of colour, from gray to deep anthracite, from nearly black, to brownish purple and almost burgundy-like brown.

    Four on the same page

    The four of us have worked on this assignment. Stide has made four of them, I did five, Jelle made two more, and Serge accounted for the lion's share and carved the remaining nine. Working together in such a group, the individual differences between the individual sculptors working are bound to show, for after all, we are not machines. Yet there was a great partnership and close cooperation among us. For instance, on two occasions the three of us have been working on one clay model, all at the same time , during which we noticed to our own surprise how much consensus there was on the shapes that we were pursuing and how the tension needs to flow within the leaves. Stide had initially made a clay model, which we adjusted together during the first visit of the committee, and Serge's first piece was carved after that model.

    Ten left and ten right

    Old photograph from 1960 ofthe left transept of Utrecht Cathedral, without any crockets
    the facade of the transept, here without any crockets, round 1960

    These twenty large crockets will come on top of the left transept, where the wall ends and the eaves begin. So there are ten left hand and ten right hand crockets. If you stand between the Dom Tower and the cathedral and you walk a little to the left, you will just be able to see them. And perhaps even from the terraces next to the church.

    These crockets in basalt lava will replace twenty crockets that were installed in the 1980s. These were casts, but they did not survive the last thirty years very well, so they already need to be replaced now. Fortunately, this time was chosen for graceful ornaments in a much more robust stone, so we can assume that these crockets will adorn the church for much longer.

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